Many facilities, ships, and vehicles include an array of discrete storage receptacles. A receptacle herein refers to any installed container that is used for long-term or temporary storage of one or more items. Receptacles include, but are not limited to: storage bins, lockers, mail boxes, post office boxes, storage or shipping containers, lock boxes, and the like. Facilities, ships, or vehicles, such as airports, aircraft, trains, busses, train and bus stations, freighters, educational facilities, athletic facilities, theme and recreational parks, mail/parcel storage and/or collection/delivery facilities, hospitals, military bases, mini-storage facilities, government facilities, businesses, and the like, provide receptacles for the benefit of their customers or employees. These receptacles are intended for specific uses, such as personal storage or as a venue for transferring parcels. All have potential safety/security hazards, as well as potential content monitoring requirements. At present, there is no versatile system-wide approach for monitoring the contents of these receptacles to identify the presence of unacceptable materials, or even simply to identify the presence or absence of a physical object.
Managers of receptacle arrays may want to identify certain potentially hazardous materials that should not normally be present in a specified receptacle. These materials may include but are not limited to: Chemicals, Drugs, Explosives, Gunpowder Residue, Radioactive Material, Biochemical Agents, and other Hazardous Materials. A system solution for identifying these materials, and providing rapid notification to responsible authorities is desirable.
Managers of receptacle arrays may also want to identify the presence of certain environmental conditions in receptacles, in order to more rapidly respond to emergencies or events. These environmental conditions may include but are not limited to: fire, smoke, extreme temperature, moisture or humidity variations, and the like. An approach for specifically identifying the source or location of such events, and to provide rapid notification to responsible authorities is needed.
Managers of receptacle arrays or end users may also require the notification of the presence of physical objects located within a receptacle. This may include notification of the presence or change of any physical object within a receptacle, or may require identification and notification of the presence of specific objects within a receptacle. Users of these receptacles may need to know this information in a timely fashion. A way to specifically identify object physical presence or change in physical presence and timely notification of appropriate end users is desirable.
Presently, end users, managers of receptacle arrays, or responsible authorities are normally required to regularly physically access receptacles on-site to determine the presence of certain objects, hazardous materials, contraband, or environmental conditions specific to particular receptacles. This can be a time consuming, labor intensive and costly process.